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The author of the interview with the father of the Iranian martyr, Mahsa Amini, was sentenced without a hearing

An Iranian journalist who had been arrested after an interview with the father of the young Mahsa Amini, whose death in detention triggered widespread protests in Iran, said on Saturday that she was sentenced without a hearing, AFP reports. Nazila Maroufian, a journalist working in Tehran and originally from the hometown of the young Iranian Mahsa Amini, in the Kurdistan province (northwest), was arrested at the end of October and placed in detention in Evine prison in Tehran, according to some NGOs. “According to a decision of the 26th chamber of the revolutionary tribunal, I was sentenced to two years in prison, to pay a fine (…) and to the prohibition to leave the country for five years”, for ” propaganda against the regime and the promotion of fake news,” Maroufian wrote on Twitter.

“The two-year prison sentence is suspended for a period of five years,” she added, emphasizing that “the verdict was given without a hearing and without my defense.” Nazila Maroufian, who worked for the news site Ruydad 24, had published an interview with Amjad, the father of young Mahsa Amini, on October 19, on the online site Mostaghel. “I don’t intend to commit suicide and I don’t suffer from any hidden illness,” commented the journalist, posting a link to her article, a direct allusion to the risks she was aware of taking by publishing the interview. The Mostaghel website has since retracted the text, but a hidden version revealed that the father denies the explanations of the Iranian authorities, according to which his daughter was suffering from health problems. The title of the article is unequivocal: “Mahsa Amini’s father: ‘They are lying'”. Iran was shaken for several months by the demonstrations triggered by the death, on September 16, of the young Iranian Mahsa Amini. She had been arrested by the morality police for not respecting the very strict dress code that the Islamic Republic imposes on women.The demonstrations, qualified as riots by the Iranian authorities, are unprecedented in Iran in terms of their scale and nature after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The two journalists who contributed to bringing this case to the attention of the general public are also in detention in Evine.Niloofar Hamedi, 30, from the Shargh publication, went to the hospital where Mahsa Amini was in a coma before she died. She was arrested on September 20, according to the family.Elaheh Mohammadi, 35 years old, a reporter for the daily Ham Mihan, went to Saghez in turn to broadcast the young woman’s funeral and where one of the first manifestations of this large protest movement also took place. She was arrested on September 29. According to the latest balance sheet of the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, since September 16, the security forces have killed at least 488 people during the demonstrations, of which 64 were not even 18 years old.

By Cora Sulleyman

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